IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/iewwpx/116.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Museums between Private and Public - The Case of the Beyeler Museum in Basle

Author

Listed:
  • Bruno S. Frey
  • Stephan Meier

Abstract

In Europe, ever more private museums are now entering the field. This paper investigates the behavior of one of these private museums, using an institutional approach of cultural economics. The Beyeler museum in Basle, Switzerland, is a privately founded art museum with an extraordinary collection of art works. Though less than five years old, it is acknowledged to be the most successful museum in Switzerland in terms of number of visitors. However, the Beyeler museum is not completely private but receives public support. We analyze how this influences the museum's behavior: (1) The directorate of the Beyeler museum stays away from the art market with its collection as public institutions do. (2) The museum embarks on a self-propelling process concerning special exhibitions, therewith losing some of its uniqueness. (3) Concerning visitors' amenities, differences between private and public museums emerge but to a lesser extent than expected according to theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, "undated". "Museums between Private and Public - The Case of the Beyeler Museum in Basle," IEW - Working Papers 116, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:116
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econ.uzh.ch/apps/workingpapers/wp/iewwp116.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stigler, George J, 1984. " Economics-The Imperial Science?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 86(3), pages 301-313.
    2. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1985. "The Expanding Domain of Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(6), pages 53-68, December.
    3. Richard N. Rosett, 1991. "Art Museums in the United States: A Financial Portrait," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Art Museums, pages 129-178, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. John O'hagan, 1998. "Art Museums: Collections, Deaccessioning and Donations," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 22(2), pages 197-207, June.
    5. Martin Feldstein, 1991. "The Economics of Art Museums," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feld91-1, March.
    6. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    7. Frey, Bruno S, 1994. "Cultural Economics and Museum Behaviour," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 41(3), pages 325-335, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carmen Camarero & Mª Garrido & Eva Vicente, 2011. "How cultural organizations’ size and funding influence innovation and performance: the case of museums," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 35(4), pages 247-266, November.
    2. Asuaga, Carolina & Rausell, Pau, 2006. "Un Análisis de la gestión de instituciones culturales: el caso específico de los Museos [Management in cultural organizations: the case of museums]," MPRA Paper 13756, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frey, Bruno S. & Meier, Stephan, 2006. "The Economics of Museums," Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, in: V.A. Ginsburgh & D. Throsby (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 29, pages 1017-1047, Elsevier.
    2. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, "undated". "Pro-Social Behavior, Reciprocity or Both?," IEW - Working Papers 107, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    3. Frey, Bruno S. & Meier, Stephan, 2004. "Pro-social behavior in a natural setting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 65-88, May.
    4. Muzychuk, V. & Khaunina, E., 2015. "Support Mechanisms for Museums in the Economic Crisis (the Example of Major Museums of Europe and Russia)," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 132-161.
    5. Peter Johnson & Barry Thomas, 1998. "The Economics of Museums: A Research Perspective," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 22(2), pages 75-85, June.
    6. Bruno S. Frey, 2003. "Flexible Citizenship for a Global Society," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 2(1), pages 93-114, February.
    7. Vincent G. Munley, 2018. "A Contingent Valuation Analysis of the Galway City Museum: Welfare Estimates for Attendance in the Absence of an Admission Fee," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 49(4), pages 489-514.
    8. John Ashworth & Peter Johnson, 1996. "Sources of “value for money” for museum visitors: Some survey evidence," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 20(1), pages 67-83, March.
    9. Murat Arik & Hulya Varol & Stan McMillen, 2000. "The Economic Impact of the New Britain Museum of American Art Expansion," CCEA Studies 2000-05, University of Connecticut, Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis.
    10. Werner Pommerehne & Lars Feld, 1997. "The Impact of Museum Purchase on the Auction Prices of Paintings," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 21(3), pages 249-271, September.
    11. John O'hagan, 1998. "Art Museums: Collections, Deaccessioning and Donations," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 22(2), pages 197-207, June.
    12. Margit Osterloh, 2007. "Psychologische Ökonomik: Integration statt Konfrontation," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 59(56), pages 82-111, January.
    13. Marchionatti, Roberto, 2012. "The economists and the primitive societies," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 529-540.
    14. Yew-Kwang NG, 2016. "Extending Economic Analysis to Analyze Policy Issues More Broadly," Economic Growth Centre Working Paper Series 1609, Nanyang Technological University, School of Social Sciences, Economic Growth Centre.
    15. Bruno Frey, 1998. "Superstar Museums: An Economic Analysis," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 22(2), pages 113-125, June.
    16. Peter Corning, 2013. "Rotating the Necker cube: A bioeconomic approach to cooperation and the causal role of synergy in evolution," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 171-193, July.
    17. Bruno S. Frey, 1994. "How Intrinsic Motivation is Crowded out and in," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(3), pages 334-352, July.
    18. Asuaga, Carolina & Peombo, Carina, 2010. "Los Museos y el Cuadro de Mando Integral: Una adaptación de la perspectiva del cliente [Museums and Balanced Scorecard: An customer perspective adaptation]," MPRA Paper 105689, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Ruttan, Vernon W., 2007. "Imperialism, Colonialism and Collaboration in the Social Sciences," Staff Papers 7356, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    20. Charles Gray, 1998. "Hope for the Future? Early Exposure to the Arts and Adult Visits to Art Museums," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 22(2), pages 87-98, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Museums; special exhibitions; state support; cultural economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:116. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Severin Oswald (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.